


The Edge of Desire

by peachstark



Category: The Avengers (2012)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Detectives, Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, Attempted Murder, F/M, M/M, Suicide Attempt
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2013-04-10
Updated: 2013-04-17
Packaged: 2017-12-08 03:05:34
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 3
Words: 8,345
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/756264
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/peachstark/pseuds/peachstark
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>James Barnes is a New York Times reporter who has lost the joy of life. Clint Barton is an annoying CIA agent who tries to hit on his wife - and not even trying to hide it. When their mutual friend Tony Stark gets hurt, Clint and James need to work together to get whoever tried to hurt Tony.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> This is an AU based briefly on a roleplay I did long long time ago. Then I started to write it as an original novel, but I thought I'd do a converted version to a fanfiction, since it started as Avengers AU RP anyway. The pairings are a bit weird, but they are there to fit the setting.
> 
> About the setting: It's a modern day AU mixed with Detectives AU. No super powers. Also people from Captain America are about the same age as people from the other movies. 
> 
> Not Explicit yet - but we are building up to that.
> 
> Also I'd like to point out that this is my first time publishing fanfiction in a long time and the very first time publishing fanfiction in English. So I'm sorry if it's not perfect grammar.

I had known Special Agent Barton for several years before all this. He was a CIA agent and never let anyone to forget that. Personally I thought he was very charming, which probably was the reason why women always scattered around him like parasites. I just gave him a nod, whenever we happened to be in the same party or exchanged few words.

He fascinated me, I’m not going to deny that, but he would have fascinated any journalist. His stories made the whole room listen. His voice was perfect for storytelling and he knew how to use it. Even my wife seemed to think so. I often wondered why such a beautiful woman was stuck with me, when he could have had anyone, like Barton.

So here we were again, in a charity ball, in New York. I never had figured out who was the common friend we had who always managed to get us to the same party. I had been looking to his direction for a good fifteen minutes. He was wearing black trousers, white shirt and a dark grey vest, obviously tailored for him. I suddenly became were aware of my old tweed jacket and brown shoes that needed polishing very badly. My hands were stained by ink again and I felt like I was out of my place.

“You can go home, honey, I’ll stay here a bit longer…”, my wife chirped. Her cheeks were glowing pink and I could smell the alcohol in her breath. I reached for her champagne glass and put it aside.

“I’m alright, honey”, I muttered. She was pursing her lips at me, for taking away her drink. “I think you’ve had enough for tonight. Do you really want to go home like that? The kids are home, for god sake.” I continued with a hushed tone, but still she gave me a very unimpressed look and walked away. I rubbed my temple, knowing that a migraine was on its way. I watched her heading to the ladies room and took my phone from my pocket to get us a cab. It would take over half an hour to get home to Brooklyn in the current traffic.

As I was trying to find the number from my phone, I felt a tapping on my shoulder. It was Tony Stark, one of the wealthiest men on New York, if not even in the whole world, but he also happened to be one of my closest friends. We had been roommates in college, and pretty much inseparable after that.

“James! I didn’t expect to see you here.” He said with a smug grin. He always had a smug grin on his face.

“Why? You think a charity ball like this is only for you rich jerks?” I bobbed my eyebrows and made Tony laugh. “I normally wouldn’t have come, but Peggy insisted.” I continued rolling my eyes.

“Ah, I thought I saw her walk by earlier. Is everything alright?” Tony had always been able to see through me, and he knew about the problems we were facing.

“It’s just one of _those_ nights”

“If you need anything, and I mean anything at all, you know you can come to me, right?”

“And you know how much I hate asking for help”

“I know, but please James, you are like a brother to me, and I hate to see you suffering like that. You know what, we’ll have a lunch next week.”

“You don’t have to, I know you are busy, especially now that you are about over the company. I know it’s a big step for you.”

 

Tony’s grandfather was the creator of Stark Industries. It has started as a small family business but now it had spread all over the globe and was the largest weapon manufacturer in the world. Until few months ago, Tony had been the typical rich playboy and constantly on the front page of the magazines. But now his father, who was the CEO of Stark Industries, had had a heart attack, and Tony was next in line to take over the company. They wanted the CEO position to stay within the family. 

I knew that Tony just wanted to build cars; he was literally a genius with them, or anything related to electronics and building really. He had been working for the company for years, but in the R&D department. And I knew how much he hated being in this position, but he was the only one who could fill in his father’s shoes.

 

“I’ll make some time”, he said. “Are you free on…” he pulled out his little touch screen planner and tapped it for awhile. “Wednesday, around noon?”

 

“I can do that”

“Brilliant. I’ll e-mail you more details.” he smiled.

 

“Sounds good to me” I nodded and looked around to see if Peggy was already out of the ladies room. She wasn’t really hard to spot. She was really one of the most beautiful girls I’ve ever had a pleasure to meet. Her hair was naturally curly and chocolate brown, she was originally from England. Tonight she was wearing a golden dress that just made her skin glow.

I turned around to tell Tony that we were about to leave as soon as I’d find my wife, but he had already wandered off. My eyes glued back to Barton. He was talking with my wife. I felt a jolt of jealousy rushing through me. Slowly I made my way to them. 

 

“Barton…” I said and nodded politely and turned to my wife. “Honey, our ride is here. We should keep going.”

“James, I’m in a middle of conversation with Clint.”

 

I blinked few times.

 

“Yeah, buddy, maybe you should go home. I can take care of your wife for you.”

 

I could just hear the blood rushing behind my ears.

 

“I think I can handle my own wife, thank you _Agent_.” I huffed. I wasn’t a guy who’d let someone to take my wife, but then again, I wasn’t a person who’d even stand up for myself. And my wife liked to remind me of that quite often.

 

“I think I should go with my husband… I don’t want him to cause a scene” Peggy said and gave me a stinging look. A scene? I asked myself. She was the one who was throwing herself in someone else’s arms. But I just nodded and took Peggy’s hand. Barton, or Clint as my wife liked to call him, nodded and gave my wife a smirk. I gritted my teeth and walked away with her.

From the outside our life must have looked perfect. We had been married for 7 years now. We had two beautiful children. Steven was almost six and Annie was three. We lived in a mortgage free house in Brooklyn; we had two cars, a dog and a gold fish. I was a journalist for the New York Times and Peggy worked for the government. We had many friends and mostly we enjoyed our lives. We held dinner parties and went to the charity events. Peggy usually enjoyed the company of the elite. Her family was from England after all, and they were, as much as she hated me for calling her that ‘posh’.

Usually our fights were about where we lived. She wanted an apartment from Upper East Side, she wanted to maintain the lifestyle she had had in England. We lived in a nice neighborhood, in a big house and the kids were in expensive schools. But my wife was embarrassed of the postcode we had. I wanted to make my wife happy, but the problem was the money. We just couldn’t afford to raise a family in Upper East Side. She knew that, but that didn’t stop her from reminding about the fact that I was _just_ a journalist, every time we had a fight.

Sure, we had talked about divorce many times, but we had decided to stay together for the sake of the kids. I know that both of us were miserable at times, but I had promised myself to make enough money to get her the dream house. Get her the life she dreamt about. It was my duty as her husband. I had this crazy fantasy in my head, that when I would be able to do that, all of our problems would disappear and everything wrong in the world would be right again. It would be just like when we first fell in love.

By the time we got out of the cab, she was getting worse. She was barely standing up, too drunk to stay on her feet. I lifted her on my arms and carried up to the house. I gently helped her out of her dress and helped her into her nightgown. I tucked her in and went back downstairs to pay for the babysitter. She smiled apologetically and took off. My headache was getting worse and I popped few aspirins in my mouth before going to check on the kids. 

All night I was thinking about Special Agent Barton. How cocky he was. How I wanted to kick his face in. And how coward I was for not really wanting to do it. What was so special about him anyway? The guy obviously thought of himself as James Bond. He treated everyone, especially women, as objects. And I had heard rumors that he wasn’t that picky with his choices. There were men as well as there were women. He even haunted my dreams that night.

 

-

 

Next morning I took the kids to Coney Island because Peggy was too hangover to have the kids in the house. My headache was still there, but the kids were my whole life. And recently I had been so caught up with the words that I hadn’t been able to spend enough time with them at all. Steven was telling me about what he had learned at school and Annie was just happy to ride on my shoulders and eat way too much cotton candy to fill the needs of a three year old.

 

“Daddy why is do you always look so sad?” Annie chirped from the backseat on our way back home. I almost had to stop the car because it stung so much. Why was I so looking so sad?

 

“You look like you want to cry”, Steven continued and looked at me with a serious face.

 

“I’m not sad…” I smiled. “Daddy is just a bit tired, that’s all.”

 

“I don’t want you to be sad, daddy.” Annie said and then concentrated to play with her new stuffed animal I had bought her from the amusement park.

 

I tried to brush the conversation off all day. But it kept coming back to me. I was still thinking about it while fixing dinner for the kids. Was I really so unhappy that even my kids could see it. The last thing I wanted to do was to stress the kids with this. It wasn’t something they should deal with; it wasn’t anything anyone should deal with.

 

I felt a bit better after opening my computer and saw e-mail from Tony.

 

 **From** :[ tony.stark@starkindustries.com](../)

 **To:** [james.barnes@nytimes.com](mailto:james.barnes@nytimes.com)

 **Subject:** Lunch details

 

**Message:**

Hey James! We are having lunch on Wednesday, 11.30am at Skylight Diner. See you there, loser! – Tony

 

I laughed a bit and replied shorty that I would be there and closed my computer. It was time for the kids to go to the bed. I had no idea where Peggy had gone while we were out, but she still hadn’t come back. It wasn’t anything unusual, but I hated not knowing where she was. 

Yet again another day went by. I was feeling slightly numb. This was not what I had wanted from my life. I had had my plan since I was 15. By this age I should have been a Pulitzer Prize winner. Not that I didn’t have what it took. I was a brilliant writer, but I just didn’t have time to get involved with stories that would have won that. I felt too responsible for my family. I did love my family to bits, but sometimes I daydreamt about going abroad, doing my thing.

I had started writing a novel few years ago, but I hadn’t gone very far with it. It was a detective novel, since I had loved reading Sherlock and other detectives through my childhood. But I was stuck with the idea and I didn’t know which direction I wanted to take the book. So I had just pushed it aside and let it be. And to be honest, I didn’t have time for that either.

 

-

 

On Wednesday I was sat in the Skylight Diner with my laptop open. It was only twenty past eleven, but I really didn’t mind. I was a bit late on my story and I was finishing it while waiting for Tony. Writing really made me sink into another world. My fingers danced on the keys and when I finally looked up from my screen I noticed that it was 11:50am already. I frowned; it wasn’t really like Tony to be late. I checked my clock and the clock on my computer just to make sure that the clock on the diner wall was right, but it seemed to be.  I reached for my phone to see if he had sent me a text or tried to call me, but nothing. I went through my e-mail just to make sure it was the right day, time and place.

I tried his cell, but it just kept ringing. He was probably stuck in a meeting. I decided to wait for him for a while before leaving. I ordered a sandwich and cup of coffee and finished my work. But when Tony hadn’t shown up by one o’clock, I left. I sent him a text to call me later.

When the phone finally rang that evening, it wasn’t exactly what I had expected. It was Tony’s secretary. First I couldn’t quite catch what she was saying because she was sobbing and trying to catch her breath. I had to calm her down a bit before she could tell what was going on.

 

“They found him... today.. Oh my god, I don’t know what to do. He tried to…” her voice broke down.

 

“Calm down, sweetheart. Just tell me what happened?” I felt my heart sink.

 

“Tony… They found him this morning, hanging from the ceiling. He’s been moved to the hospital now. I don’t know what is going on… They won’t tell me.”

 

All I could do was to mumble thank you and getting the info of the hospital before hanging up on her. It was like taking a punch to my chest. I felt my head spinning. Thinking about this moment later I could just remember grabbing my keys, running to the neighbor’s house and ask our regular babysitter to come in for few hours. Then I drove to the hospital, but the whole drive was just a blur in my memories.

I almost got thrown out of the hospital for yelling at the receptionist, trying to see my friend. I finally calmed down enough for them to sit me down on the hallway, waiting for what would happen next. I wasn’t Tony’s close family or his emergency contact, so there was nothing they could do or tell me. I just knew that my best friend was fighting for his life in one of the hospital rooms. I didn’t know if he was even alive to be honest, they couldn’t even tell me that.

 


	2. Chapter 2

I don’t know if I waited for minutes, hours or days. Everything seemed to blur in my eyes. There was no one there for him. His dad was still covering from heart attack he had had and he didn’t have any other relatives in this country. Closest cousins or so, were in Europe. I had begged to get in there, told them I was his best friend. That had to mean something, right?

Like I said, I didn’t really know how long it had been. It was dark outside and I couldn’t hear much traffic so it probably was way over midnight. As I thought my life couldn’t get any worse I saw him. Special Agent Barton was walking towards me. What the hell was he doing in here? He walked to me.

“I’m sorry for your loss” he said with a monotonic voice.

“What do you know about this?” I huffed. I really hoped this wasn’t going out to the media already. “And he’s not dead – just so you know” I continued with the praise I had been repeating in my head since the moment I got into the hospital.

“Oh, so no one told you?” he said sounding a bit surprised.

“Told me what?” 

“I found your friend. We had a meeting yesterday morning. I’m sorry. If I could just have few words with – “

As he prepared to tell me something, the doctor finally came to us. He said that Tony’s father had given me a permission to be there for his son and represent the Stark family. He said that Tony’s stage was stable now, but since his brains had been without oxygen for a little bit too long, he was not waking up yet. Luckily there wasn’t any damage in his neck. And since I was the family representative, I could go sit by his bed if I wanted to. I turned to look at Barton.

“I’m sorry, but that will have to wait.”

The agent nodded and the doctor leaded me to Tony’s room. He explained to me quite a lot of things, but I really didn’t hear him. I just watched my best friend, hooked into few machines that were keeping him alive. My throat was sore and dry. The doctor finally gave up and excused himself, leaving the two of us alone. 

I called the babysitter and told her that my parents were going to get the kids in the morning, if she could please stay there, because apparently my wife wasn’t home again. Then I called my boss to tell her I wasn’t coming to work for the rest of the week. I would however e-mail her everything she needed from me. She was an understanding person and we were good friends. She told me to take as much time as I needed. 

The next couple of days were the worst. We didn’t know if Tony was going to get better or get worse. On the third day, his father finally arrived. That gave me enough time to actually leave the hospital and go home, get some sleep and shower. The kids were still with my parents in upstate New York. Peggy was at work. We had talked few times and she had popped by to see Tony. The house was empty and after a cup of soup and a hot shower I just passed out on the couch. I didn’t even dream, I was too exhausted. I woke up twelve hours later to my phone ringing. It was from an unknown caller. Usually I tried not to answer them, because mostly it was just someone trying to sell me a magazine or get money for charity, but because of Tony’s state, I answered. 

“Hello?”

“Is this James Barnes?”

“Yes, who is this?”

“Oh, this is Clint Barton.”

I gritted my teeth. This guy had some nerve to call me on my phone like this. What the hell did he want?

“What can I do for you?” I said sounding as irritated as possible. Maybe he would give up.

“I just needed to talk to you about your friend. I heard his father has some heart problems, and I’d rather talk about this with someone who is not in a risk of getting a heart attack. The thing is… well, I’d rather talk about this face-to-face. Would you mind if I came over?”

“I’m not at the hospital anymore.”

“I know. I am. They told me that you had gone home to rest.”

I chewed my lip so hard it started bleeding, bad habit from my childhood. It always happened when I was really stressed.

“Alright.”

He showed up on my door about 45 minutes later. I was used to him wearing very nice suits and looking very dapper all the time. So when he was wearing a white t-shirt, grey hoodie and a black leather jacket and pair of stone washed jeans, I almost didn’t recognize him. The look in his eyes was horrifyingly similar than mine. He looked exhausted and his cheeks were slightly hollow, like he hadn’t been eating at all in days. 

“Jesus…” I choked out without thinking. He gave me a glance.

“Do I really look that bad? You don’t look so good yourself, buddy…” 

I couldn’t believe that I was having this conversation with the guy who had tried to hit on my wife just a week ago. Deep inside I felt sorry for him though. What was the connection between him and Tony? I knew Tony knew him in some level, everyone knew Tony in some level and everyone knew Special Agent Barton in some level too. At least everyone who ever someone in this city.

“I was going to eat something before going back to the hospital. You hungry?” I asked raiding through the cupboards in the kitchen. 

“If you have coffee, that would be helpful, thanks.”

I put on the coffee machine and poured myself more of the soup I had had earlier. I carried everything into living room with a tray and sat across from him. 

“Nice house you have here” he started.

“Can you just get to the point?” I said, not trying to sound irritated, just tired.

“Right.”

He pulled a folder from his army green messenger bag. 

“This is not official information and I’m not here doing any official work. I’m just a concerned friend of Tony’s. Who happens to have some connections with CIA.” He said and offered me the folder.

“What is this?” I opened it and instantly regretted it. There were pictures of Tony who had just pulled off from the rope; there were pictures of the rope and all kind of documents. I felt sick to my stomach.

“What the hell is this?” I repeated and looked up to Barton.

“I don’t think he did it.”

“What do you mean ‘you don’t think he did it?’ I think it’s pretty obvious that he indeed did do it!” I felt myself getting angry and my cheeks were probably getting red, like they always did when I was really upset or angry. 

“I do this for living. Investigate crimes. I think his suicide attempt was staged. I don’t think he was trying to kill himself at all. There are so many things that do not match. For example –“

“Hold it right there” I interrupted him. “Are you trying to tell me that someone did this to him?”

“That’s what I’m asking from you?”

“From me? Why?” I looked dumbstruck.

“You two are friends, right? Is this something he could have done?”

“I don’t know. I haven’t really thought about it… I mean, I never thought he would. He loves life – He loves himself too much. So I guess, no, it’s not something he would do. But that doesn’t mean someone did this to him.”

“The doctors refuse to give me his medical records. I really need to know if there was something in them… “

I gave him a dry chuckle. Not because I thought he had said something particularly funny, but because I knew where this was heading.

“And that’s why you need me, isn’t it? You need me to give you the records, because I have a permission to see them.”

He rubbed his face and looked back up to me, looking even more tired.

“You don’t know how important Tony was to me… Is to me. Please, I’m begging you to help me with this.”

“Why don’t you go to the police then?”

“Because… I just have my reasons, alright?”

The whole thing sounded ridiculous. I didn’t want to help him; I just wanted him out of my sight and get back to the hospital. I wanted my best friend to wake up and explain what the fuck had happened. 

“You can wait till he wakes up. You just need sleep – you are just paranoid.”

“If you just would listen to me!” he raised his voice.

“I’m asking you nicely once. Then I’m throwing you out. Please leave.”

He looked at me in disbelief and then let out a laugh and shook his head.

“I’ll show my own way out.”

“Good” I said, and I knew it sounded really stubborn, but I was at the point that I really didn’t care what he thought of me. I didn’t care what anyone thought about me right now. 

“Good.” He repeated and walked out of the living room. I could hear him slamming the door shut really hard. 

It was bugging me the rest of the day. What was between Tony and Barton? Knowing both of their backgrounds, I wouldn’t have been surprised if there was something romantic going on between them. Tony and me hadn’t been able to catch up in few months, so I wasn’t sure what he was doing – or rather who he was doing. Last time we had discussed about his love life there had been a model called Rachel or Raquel. I wasn’t quite sure, not that it really mattered anyway. 

Before going back to the hospital I drove over to Tony’s place. I knew where the spare key was, because I had been spending few nights there every now and then, when Peggy and me had had a fight. And since Tony spent more time out of the country, than actually in it, it was always empty and very convenient for me. 

I parked my car by the back gate and tapped a 5-digit code to open in. I closed the gate behind me and walked across the backyard to the backdoor and pulled a key under a decorative stone. Inside the house I had to close the security system by giving a 10-digit code. 

I walked around the house. We used to come here for the Spring Break and just have massive parties. That is where I met Peggy for the first time. I kept walking around and a little smile crept on my face. There were so many memories in this house. In a fact, Peggy and me had had our Wedding reception here. 

I made my way upstairs. I could feel the lump forming in my throat. From the photos I had seen in Barton’s folder, I knew it happened in the master bedroom. The door was open and I could hear a quiet noise escaping my lips when I saw part of the rope still hanging from the ceiling. There was a chair fallen down on the floor by the bed, and the rest of the rope next to it. It looked like it’s been cut off. The bed had not been made and the curtains were still closed. 

I felt sick, but I somehow I managed to walk through the room and open the curtains and let the sunset color the whole room with red and gold. I sat down for a while, just thinking what I could have done to prevent this. Maybe there had been signs, but I just had been too too caught up in my own misery, that I just didn’t see it or have time to see it. 

I wanted to remove the rest of the rope from the ceiling, but I wasn’t sure if I was allowed to do that. Maybe there would be a police investigation after all. I kept thinking about what Barton said earlier. What if someone really did this to Tony? Who would want to hurt him? As I thought about it, the list just keeps getting longer and longer. A lot of people had a motive to kill him. He’s not exactly the most liked guy, mostly because there are just too many jealous people in this world. And Tony really could be a jerk.

I just couldn’t take it anymore. The house was making me feel really uncomfortable. I put on the security system and left. I drove for a while on my own, sunk into my thoughts before driving to the hospital. I let Mr. Stark get to his hotel to get some rest and I promised I’d stay with Tony until the morning. After all I had gotten a solid 12 hours of sleep earlier. 

In the early morning hours my curiosity finally got the best of me. I’m a journalist after all, curiosity is something I needed to have to be good at my job. I pulled the medical reports from a little pocket at the end of Tony’s bed and browsed through them. They were mostly just medical terms that I didn’t really understand. I thought about Barton’s request and I glanced at my best friend. I thought about my life and how desperately I want to change it. 

I scattered the papers on the end of Tony’s bed and took a picture with my phone of every single one. I felt like I was committing a crime. The feeling was exciting and finally I was feeling something else than numbness. I put the papers back to the little sleeve at the end of the bed and before leaving the room, I took Tony’s phone from the desk by his bed. His passcode was still the same and I got it unlocked without a hassle. I had to browse it a bit before I found Barton’s number, I quickly copied it to my phone and I made my way to the parking lot. I took few deep breaths as I leaned on my black SUV. It was now or never.

I didn’t usually smoke, but I always had an emergency pack in my car. I used to smoke more, but after Steven was born I quit. I inhaled the smoke of menthol cigarette and dialed Barton’s number. He answered rather quickly, considering that it was 4 in the morning.

“I have his medical records…” I said and I was suddenly starting to feel giddy for some reason.

“Really?” he sounded surprised.

“But before I’ll let you have them, I have some conditions”

He was quiet for a bit. “Alright. What do you want?”

“I want in.”

“What do you mean, you want in?”

“I want to help you, and I get to make notes about this whole thing and how you work.”

He was quiet again.

“Why?”

“You have your reasons to do this – I have mine. Now, do you want my help or not?”

He sighed heavily. “Alright. But no one else gets to know about this. I don’t even know what this is yet.”

“Deal. Meet me up tomorrow at Skylight Diner at 10am.”

I felt like I was in a detective movie and so excited and I didn’t even know why. I was suppose to be having the worst day of my life, but at that moment life didn’t feel that bad after all.

“See you then”, he said and for some reason I could almost hear him smiling at the other end of the line.


	3. Chapter 3

I don’t know much about Special Agent Barton. But if I would know, this is something I’d tell if someone asked. He was born in Louisiana, in a shack in a middle of a swamp. He lived the first four to five years of his life in a trailer, with his mother, father and big brother Barney. His father was an alcoholic and often raised his hand to either hit Barney or his wife. But never did he raise his hand on Clint. He doesn’t prefer his first name being used by people who are not close to him. That is why I only know him as Barton. 

Clint’s father had a car accident when he was young, still just a boy. He crashed into another car and he and his wife died. Barney was already 15, but that was way too young to take care of Clint by himself. A family friend, one Phil Coulson, who was also a CIA agent and would later become Clint’s mentor, took them under his wings and gave them a home. They moved away from Louisiana.

What would be a shocking surprise for me later on was that Clint and Tony got to know each other in high school. They had been pretty much what Tony and me were now. As soon as Clint turned 18 he joined the army. He served in Afghanistan, but was injured during a bombing and due the injury on his left foot; he was dismissed from duty with honors. He never wanted the honors, he always felt like he was just doing his job. He would tell me sometimes about the times in Afghanistan. 

He was leading a group of soldiers. And he made a mistake when there was an ambush. Half of the men got captured or got killed. It was a suicide mission to save them, but he did. And he hurt himself in the process. But they gave him both, the Purple Heart for getting wounded in the battle, and a Medal of Honor for bravery.

His guardian, the CIA agent who took Clint and his brother under his wing, helped him to get a job in the CIA. In just a few years time he became a Special Agent and the rest is pretty much classified. This is what I would learn about him in time, but back to the present moment.

I sighed out of relief when I see Barton sitting in the diner when I arrived. He was reading something from his laptop when I took the seat across from him. He nodded at me and looked back at his screen. We sat there for a moment in silence, until the waitress came and brought coffee for us. I stared mine. It was perfectly done, just the way I like it. There was one cream and two sugars on the side. I had no idea how he knew that, but I mixed them in my coffee, and made a mental note that he drinks his coffee black. Who knew when I would be needing that information.

He finally pushed his computer away and gave me a smile.

“Thank you” he sighed.

“Don’t thank me yet. I looked through the files, but I didn’t see anything that would have caught my eye, then again I’m not a specialist.” I reached to my bag and took a USB stick, where the files from my phone were now.

“I want to know something first” I continued and pulled the USB stick back, like I was holding it as a hostage.

“Anything” he said and raised his eyebrow.

“What’s the connection between you and Tony? I’m his best friend and I can’t from the love of God figure out what’s your agenda here.”

Barton chuckled and took a sip of his coffee.

“Well, me and Tony went to the same high school and we were pretty much best friends back then. Time just made us grow apart I guess. Sure we have seen each others since and even briefly talked, but recently we got re-connected.”

The child in me was raising his jealous head; first my wife and now my best friend. I pushed the jealous thoughts out of my mind.

“I see,” I muttered and he cocked his eyebrow again.

“Is that a problem?”

“Not at all” I assured him. 

“The reason I was about to see Tony that morning, was because he felt like something was not right. That someone was following him. He was really scared that someone was going to hurt him.”

I frowned. Tony had not mentioned anything to me. But when I thought about it, Barton was an agent and he probably would have been a lot more helpful, if someone was really following Tony, than a New York Times journalist. Though, what good that did to Tony? He was still in the hospital.

I finally gave him the USB stick and he connected it to his computer and started to go through the pictures. The more he read, the deeper the wrinkles on his forehead got, then his expression turned from worried to like someone had punched him in the face.

“What is it?” I asked and tried to peek his computer screen. “What did you find?”

“He was drugged… “

“What?”

Barton closed his laptop. “He was also drunk. The alcohol level in his blood was very high.”

I blinked few times.

“But Tony hasn’t touched alcohol in years. He quit a bit after college. He’s been sober since…”

“I know.” Barton sighed and tapped his chin, like he is trying to think what to do next.

“Why are you not going to the police with this? If he was drugged… This is a crime!”

“I told you, I have my reasons”

“Well, you are not alone with this anymore. I think I have a saying in this too. And I say that we should go to the police.”

“This goes beyond police.”

“What do you mean?”

“Because this is a professional assassination. My bet is either mafia or government. “

“And what has mafia to do with this? What do they have to do with Tony? I’m really confused here… “

“We really need to discuss about this somewhere else… Please James, can I call you James? You can call me Clint. I’m doing this for my friend and so are you. You know that he would do this for you.”

I wanted to assure myself that everything was right in the world. Even with the evidence right there in front of my eyes, I refused to believe this was happening. This was my life and not an action movie where a depressed journalist meets up with a handsome and charming agent and they start solving crimes together. No, this was real life and my friend was depressed enough to try take his own life.

I got up and thanked him for the coffee. He gave me his contact information, if I changed my mind. He said something about rather working on it alone anyway. I was too bothered by this to even go back to work. Natasha, my boss, would understand. She did promise me that I could take as much time off as I needed. I decided to drive straight back home.

The pictures of Mafia being after Tony are still haunting me. So when I saw a black SUV, very much like mine, with tinted black windows on our driveway, I panicked. Maybe they were onto us. Maybe Barton had been right. I opened the door, trying to scan the room to get some sort of a weapon. The only thing I detected was an umbrella. I grabbed it and quietly walked to the staircase.

Suddenly I heard my wife screaming. It was coming from upstairs. A sudden rush of confidence jolted through me as I ran up the stairs, still holding the umbrella. As I opened the bedroom door my face literally dropped. My wife was on the bed, naked, with another guy, who was also naked. I was still holding the umbrella as a weapon, looking stupid.

“James! I thought you were at work!” she yelped, pulling the sheets to cover herself. 

The guy she’s with turned to look at me. He looked like a model. With his blond hair, blue eyes, and very muscular body. He was very attractive. 

“I thought… I heard you screaming… “ I stuttered.

There was a moment of silence from both parts. Finally the guy broke the silence. My brain was still not processing the information of my wife having sex with another guy in our bedroom. 

“I thought you said he was handsome”

There was a complete blackout from the next scene in my head. I yanked the guy up by his hair and my fist made friends with his face. I heard a nasty crack as his pretty face broke. There was a stream of warm blood spraying from his nose and a lot of yelling and cursing. I felt the pain on my hand much later when the adrenaline rush had passed. My knuckles were bruised and swollen and I could barely move my fingers. I figured that Peggy must have slapped me at some point because there was a stinging feeling on my left cheek. 

I didn’t remember getting up walking to Peggy. There was more screaming and I lifted my hand up. I had never hit a woman, and I never wanted to but something in me just burned. However before I could do anything I felt a strong hand around my wrist and then I felt my arm getting twisted behind of me. The guy turned me around. He was much stronger than me and my energy was completely gone. He lifted me up by my shirt and started to punch my face. I could hear Peggy crying on the background.

I spitted blood on the carpet and gathered the strength that I still had left. This didn’t really go like in the movies. I had gotten cheated on and my ass kicked. I couldn’t even look at my wife, and the reason was not that my face was so bruised that I couldn’t open my left eye anymore. I had almost hit her. She had slept with someone else. Where could we go from here? She got the first aid kit and patted the corner of my eye with cotton balls dipped in antiseptics. It stung, and I could smell the alcohol, it burned my nose.

Just few minutes ago, I had thought that my wife was in danger. The horrifying feeling that something had happened to her – now part of me almost wished that there had been some mafia guys here, beating her up. I immediately felt bad about even thinking it. She pressed some ice against my eye and I made little whining noises.

“I think I’m going to go to a hotel for few days…” I told her after I had calmed down a bit.

“James…” She started, but there was only a sob escaping her mouth.

I didn’t want to say anything. It would have just made the things worse, but before I could stop myself, I opened my mouth.

“How could you?” 

I looked at her, shaking my head when she couldn’t even give me an answer.

“Who was he?”

“He… He’s just a friend of a friend.”

“What’s his name? No wait, I don’t really want to know.” I must have sounded very bitter. I kept tossing clothes in a duffel bag, while she begged me to stay. We can make it work, she said. We will get through this together, she promised. But her promises meant nothing to me anymore. 

I really didn’t blame her. We had never had the ideal marriage anyway. I bet this guy wasn’t her first, and wouldn’t have been the last even though I hadn’t walked in on them. I had not been the husband she needed – but I would never be that. I would never become the husband or a partner she needed and deserved. 

I caressed her cheek with my hand. I was almost like we both knew now that this was the end. She had crossed the line and there was no coming back. My face was still bruised, but at least the worst swelling had started to set down. I could again open and close my left eye. She was the mother of my children – my first real love. I was always going to love her, but we were not meant to be together. She knew this too. I didn’t blame her for wanting something better, I would have wanted something better if I had been married to myself, but she agreed that she had been wrong to do it the way she did. And I never should have found out that way. I kissed her on the lips. It was bittersweet. She could the blood in my mouth and I could taste the salty tears, falling down her face. 

“Are you sure you want to leave?” she sighed. “I can go. I should be the one leaving.”

“It’s easier for me to go right now. I’m going to spend some time in the hospital anyway. I’ll go to see my parents and the kids tomorrow and ask if they could keep Annie and Steven there for couple more days. I’m sure that the kids are having the blast right now. I just don’t want them to see us fighting; you can understand that, right? We’ll figure everything out later. I just need to be alone for few days.” 

“I do understand that.” She kissed me again, and I didn’t push her away. We both knew it’s over. Still we were afraid to fall from the familiar and safe place. It’s like trying to stay in the surface, but knowing that you didn’t have enough power to keep your head above the water. But we both needed to drown and start all over again. 

I gave her a one more kiss on the forehead before I headed out of the door. I was about to book a hotel room for myself when my phone started ringing. The name ‘Clint Barton’ was blinking on my screen. I didn’t want to deal with him right now. I knew it was not his fault, but I felt like he was also responsible for my upcoming divorce. 

-

I shouldn’t have answered the phone. But I did and just to find myself sitting in his living room, sipping expensive whiskey, which by the way doesn’t really taste that different from Jack Daniels that I usually drink if I had to. 

He was everything I wasn’t, and I was taking that all out on him. He didn’t really care; instead he listened me and was very understanding. Never in a million years did I expect to find myself talking to Special Agent Barton, or Clint as he kept insisting for me to call him, about how miserable I was and how I haven’t gotten everything I wanted in my life.

We both drank more than we should have. He told me about his early childhood in Louisiana and I told about my hopes and dreams. We were really having a bonding experience. I could see now why Tony and he were friends. And still were friends, I reminded myself. I hated that I had given in to the rumors and had believed everything everyone had told me about him. He was really not the kind of guy I had thought he would be, now that he had opened up a bit. I even told him that I had never had anyone else but Peggy. He asked if I had ever kissed a guy. I shook my head and I was a bit afraid for a moment, that he might try to kiss me, but he just smirked and told me that I had missed out on a load of things. 

And for a brief moment, I forgot what had happened earlier. Maybe it was the alcohol and maybe it was the company of Clint, but I was just sick of feeling bad about myself. 

At some point he got a small plastic bag full of green herbs. I felt like I was in college again. He wrapped joints for the both of us. Oh, and if you were wondering what his apartment looked like, there was only one word to describe it: Incredible. It was a mixture of modern design and luxury lifestyle. The color palette was black white and chrome. It was rather cold. I didn’t really care about that part though – the part I cared was the view over the city. The government must have been paying him pretty well to afford probably the most beautiful view in the whole city. 

We stood there in the balcony and I took a drag of my joint. I didn’t feel sad anymore, or stressed. I felt like I was going back to my early 20s. I still had my life ahead of me. I still had time to achieve all those things that I had always wanted to do. Clint kept telling me that I should. He must have been the first person, excluding Tony, to ever encourage me to follow my dreams.

From that we somehow ended up talking about my book. He suggested that maybe we should still keep investigating Tony’s case. I could take some notes, and maybe I could help him. Give him a fresh perspective or something. In the end, I would have enough material and research to finish my book. Maybe it was because I was high and drunk, but I thought it was a brilliant idea. I wanted to do it.

So this was the story how I got caught up investigating the assassination attempt of my best friend Tony Stark. Did I know it at the point, that this would be the most significant moment, after the birth of my children, of my life? No I did not. Did I know that Special Agent Barton would become one of the most important persons in my life? No I didn’t know that either. For quite a while I was certain that Clint was wrong. And I really wanted him to be wrong. But if he had been wrong, I never would have gone down this road and change my life for good.


End file.
